Paging All Bookworms! discussion

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Ismail Kadare, The Pyramid [1992, tr. 1996] 119 pages

As with many of Kadare's novels, The Pyramid uses the form of a historical novel to present a "parable" (as one of the blurbs on the back calls it) about modern "totalitarian" regimes. Ostensibly, this is a novel about the building of the Great Pyramid of Cheops (the classical name for Khufu), but the political and social assumptions are completely present-day; for example, there are foreign diplomats (from Sumer, from the "land of Canaan", and even from "Greece", which was certainly not known to the Egyptians of the Old Kingdom) who send regular reports analyzing the situation in Egypt in modern-day terms. "Cheops", like "Mao" in The Concert, is deliberately trying to impoverish the country because prosperity, according to his advisors, leads to questioning of authority. Not only is this anachronistic with regard to ancient Egypt, but more importantly it is simply wrong as an explanation of the modern regimes he is trying to criticize -- Kadare considers the economic disasters which were a frequent consequence of the Stalinist bureaucracies as their intended goal, which gives them far more credit for intelligence than they deserve. Apart from that, however, the descriptions of the climate of suspicion and the frequent purges do apply to the Stalinist regimes -- and to right-wing dictatorships as well. Perhaps the best passage in the novel is when the legacy of Cheops is reassessed, "Men who had yelled for all their worth 'We are innocent, we have always been loyal to the Pharaoh' before being sentenced to a stretch in the quarries, now shouted from the rooftops 'We were guilty, we wanted to undermine the pyramid, but they didn't let us!'" In short, this is a good humorous parody of bureaucratic regimes, and worth reading, provided you don't expect any real history, and take Kadare's theorizing with a grain of salt.

Pride, Prejudice And Other Flavors – Sonali Dev – 2.5**
This retelling reverses the roles of Elizabeth and Darcy. Set in modern-day San Francisco it features neurosurgeon Trisha Raje (in the Darcy role), and master chef DJ Caine (in the Elizabeth Bennet role). I did like DJ, but Trisha is just a hot mess. In general, I think the author was trying too hard. Perhaps if she had just focused on the Bollywood-movie style romance without trying to force the elements of Austen’s classic into her story this might have worked better.
My full review HERE

Work Song – Ivan Doig – 4****
What a charming and engaging story! Morrie Morgan has arrived in Butte, Montana just after the end of World War I. The pace is somewhat slow. As events unfold we learn about the residents of Butte. I liked Morrie’s slow, deliberate way of judging a situation. The bookworm in me loved all his literary references, but he’s no milquetoast librarian; Morrie can, and does, take care of himself. Grace is a marvelous strong woman. Doig’s skill at character building shows in the way her actions reveal her inner struggles. I need to read of this author’s works.
My full review HERE

Peace Talks (The Dresden Files #16) by Jim Butcher
5 ★

Harry Dresden joins the White Council’s security team during the Supernatural nation’s peace talks and ends up getting way over his head, again.

What I love about these books is that they always start where the last one ended and the action is non-stop from the very beginning. The Winter mantel has not changed Harry’s sarcastic manner or his loyalty to his friends. Thomas gets himself into a whole lot of trouble in the book and Harry does everything he can to help him out, even team up with Lara. Although Karrin Murphy is still healing from her injuries from her last outing with Harry, she joins him to help Thomas. They make a really good team.
Molly and Harry’s daughter are back in this book, as well as Michael and Butters. Harry’s group of friends is great and never let him down.
I would love to know where the author gets his ideas for the demons/monsters in his books. They are all very unique and terrifying. The big threat is straight out of mythology and probably the biggest thing Harry has had to deal with. The ending leaves the reader craving more, so I’m glad the next book is coming out soon.

The Shark (The Forgotten Files #1) by Mary Burton
4 ★

Riley Tatum was a teenage runaway who lost 7 days during her time on the streets. She is now a Virginia state trooper and the murder of a teen prostitute starts bringing back the memories of her 7 missing days.

Fans of Allison Brennan will really like this series. It has the same feel: strong female lead, great mystery and just a touch of romance.
Riley Tatum is strong willed and stubborn, but she knows when she needs help. She has a great charisma with everyone she works with and a lot of respect for others. She had a rough childhood and uses her knowledge and experience to help other teenage runaways. She is also in the process of adopting one of the girls she helped and I really liked that. It made Riley more human. The man who saved her from the streets, Duke, and his wife are a godsend to troubled teens. He owns a restaurant and a sort of halfway house where the girls can work and live. I loved how he made them all go back to school though.
Former FBI agent Clay Bowman and his current employer, Shield Security, are a smart bunch of guys who are determined to solve a case from the past and believe that the current murders are connected. They worked well with Riley and the local police and get things done fast. Clay and Riley have a past and you can feel the tension between them, a good tension. You just want to tell them to kiss and get it over with. When they do… the reader is not disappointed.
The ending is fast paced and shocking. I was extremely saddened by part of it and felt really bad for Riley. I’m looking forward to continuing the series.

Larry Niven, Rainbow Mars [1999] 316 pages

The book Rainbow Mars contains a novel of the same title and five related short stories about a time-traveler named Hanville Svetz. The book is written in a humorous vein. In the stories Svetz captures various extinct animals, which turn out to be creatures of fantasy: a unicorn, a dragon, a roc, Leviathan (and Moby Dick) and a kind of reverse werewolf. In the novel, he returns to an earlier time on Mars with a dying civilization. The novel is a sort of homage to previous science fiction novels about the Red Planet, from Edgar Rice Burroughs and H. G. Wells' War of the Worlds to C.S. Lewis, Ray Bradbury and Robert Heinlein, all of which contribute elements to the plot. There is also a tree which is a sort of organic space elevator, with echoes of the Kim Stanley Robinson trilogy . . . and an undercurrent of references to Jack and the Beanstalk. The novel was originally intended to be a collaboration with Terry Pratchett, which didn't work out. Nothing serious, but a fun read.

Terry Pratchett, Witches Abroad 296 pages [Kindle]

The twelfth book in the Discworld series, and the third in the subseries about the Ramtop Witches, this is a book about stories, and particularly fairy tales. The main plot is based on a twisted version of Cinderella, with good and bad fairy godmothers, witches and a voodoo practitioner; it seems to be set in the Discworld's equivalent of New Orleans at Mardi Gras. There are also passing references to many other well-known fairy tales, all with a kind of twist (as one would expect from Pratchett.) The evil ruler of the city is particular concerned with "crimes against narrative expectations." In my opinion, one of the best books in the series.

Something Fresh – P G Wodehouse – 3***
Book One in the Blandings Castle series, featuring the elderly Lord Emsworth, his son Hon. Freddie Threepwood, and his trusty secretary, Baxter. This was a delightful romp and crime caper/comedy. Wodehouse excels are writing ridiculously plotted societal comedies that poke fun at the aristocracy and just about everyone else as well. There are unlikely disguises, attempts at hiding identities, and a variety of funny missteps along the way. Just great fun to read.
My full review HERE

Wahneema Lubiano, ed., The House that Race Built: Original Essays by Toni Morrison, Angela Y. Davis, Cornel West, and Others on Black Americans and Politics in America Today [1997] 323 pages

As a librarian I'm in a good position to notice trends in people's reading, and one hopeful sign lately is the significant increase in circulation of books about racism and anti-racism among our largely white demographic after the police killing of George Floyd and the many similar incidents that have forced their way into the media and popular consciousness as a result of the wave of protests. I don't want to exaggerate the significance either; one of the few good memes I've seen on the Internet says, "Stop calling George Floyd a "wake-up call", the alarm's been ringing for four hundred years and y'all just keep hitting snooze." Since the civil rights movement of the fifties and sixties we have seen the battle to desegregate the Boston schools, Rodney King (the incident most referred to in this book), Ferguson, and so forth, and the media and public attention lasts just about as long as the protests. In any case, I decided to join the trend; I chose this book among those that the Library had because I've been reading Morrison's novels lately and it came up when I searched for her as an author in our catalog.

The book is a collection of sixteen essays deriving from the 1994 Race Matters Conference of left-liberal Black academics held at Princeton. While the subtitle gives prominence to the three "celebrities", in fact the introductory essay, "Home" by Toni Morrison and the "Afterword" by Cornel West were very short and almost without any real content. The other essays took a variety of positions and were somewhat uneven (and of course had varying amounts of academic "culture-theory" jargon).

The first essay was probably the most useful, Stephen Steinberg's "The Liberal Retreat from Race During the Post-Civil Rights Era", which documents the Johnson administration's -- and the "mainstream" liberals' -- abandonment of the Civil Rights movement after the Voting Rights Act of 1965, when Black demands shifted from formal legal equality to the question of economic equality to make practical use of the legal rights -- particularly the demand for "affirmative action." He describes the strategy of shifting attention from racism and discrimination to the supposed "pathology" of Black culture and the Black family, which was orchestrated largely by Johnson's advisor Daniel Patrick Moynihan and his academic coauthor Nathan Glazer. (I admit to a real dislike for Moynihan and Glazer from the time I had to read their book Beyond the Melting Pot for a class in high school -- I knew that their argument was reactionary but at that time I couldn't really explain why.) He points out how Black conservatives (e.g. William Julius Wilson) tried to give legitimacy to the Moynihan emphasis on the "culture of poverty" and the pathology of the Black family, shows that Wilson was a favorite of Bill Clinton, and interestingly accuses Cornel West, one of the conference organizers, of being the "Left-wing of the Backlash" (criticism and defense of West run through many of the articles, though not always explicitly.) This article should be required reading for those who still think the liberal Democrats were great supporters of Black civil rights.

The overall argument about the importance of genuine affirmative action and the rejection of the Black cultural pathology strategy is a leitmotif of the book. Steinberg claims that the Johnson administration missed a "great opportunity" to break the racial domination hierarchy, but as another author points out, genuine affirmative action was "never on the table" in any case. Most of the articles in the book are very critical of liberalism, but in the end they just appeal from the "bad" liberals to the "good" liberals; it is telling that the index has no entries for "socialism" or "Marxism", and the few entries for "capitalism" are almost all from the single article by Angela Davis.

I won't discuss all sixteen articles here, but just highlight three more that were particularly interesting:
Patricia J. Williams' "The Ethnic Scarring of American Whiteness" discusses the appeal of racist conservative arguments to white workers, and the way that elitist liberals play into the idea that there is a monolithic racist white working class -- "the wholesale depiction of "poor whites" as bigoted, versus the enlightened, ever-so-liberal middle and upper classes who enjoy the privilege of thinking of themselves as classless." Well-said!
Two of the most disturbing articles, because they describe facts rather than just theorizing, are Robin D.J. Kelley's "Playing for Keeps" and Angela Davis' "Race and Criminalization", which document the lack of any real employment opportunity for young Black workers, with the consequent fortification of the inner cities and imprisonment of a large proportion of Black youth. Dystopian novels and films fall far short of the actual truth about American cities in the age of deindustrialization.

The Rules of Magic (Practical Magic #0) by Alice Hoffman
5 ★

Franny, Jet and Vincent Owens have been brought up with many rules: no walking in the moonlight, no red shoes, no wearing black, etc. All of that changes when they visit their Aunt Isabelle in Massachusetts and learn the family secret and about Maria Owens.

This was my favorite of the 3 books in the Practical Magic trilogy. It connects to the other 2 books seamlessly and gives the reader an enlightening history of the Aunts from Practical Magic. The 3 siblings are so very different, but you can’t help but love them all and hope for the best for them all. Vincent is a rarity in the Owens family and it was interesting to see how the magic and curse worked with him. His story may shock many readers, but it also explains a lot about the Aunts. This story is extremely tragic and brought tears to my eyes many times. I highly recommend reading these books this order: Magic Lessons, The Rules of Magic and then Practical Magic. It will make for a smoother read and a continuous story.

Belinda Thomson, Gauguin [1987] 215 pages
Françoise Cachin, Gauguin: The Quest for Paradise [1989, tr. 1982] 195 pages
Ingo F. Walther, Paul Gauguin, 1848-1903: The Primitive Sophisticate [2006] 95 pages
Paul Gauguin [2003] 80 pages
Paul Gauguin, Gauguin's Intimate Journals [1903? tr. 1921] 118 pages

For my "work-at-home" I have to read and write blog entries on a number of different genres each month; my more or less random choice for a "classic" this month is Somerset Maugham's The Moon and Sixpence, and when I saw that it is based loosely on the life of Paul Gauguin, I decided to start by digging out the library "discards" on Gauguin from my garage.

The first and longest book, by Belinda Thomson, is a volume in the Thames & Hudson World of Art series. It has a fairly objective biography and description of his paintings and the evolution of his style, without too much interpretation. There are 182 illustrations; 31 in color and 151 in black and white, which is not very useful when the descriptions emphasize that the importance of his work is largely in his use of color. In addition, the color illustrations are the darkest and most saturated of all four books that contain illustrations, which is very noticeable in the works that are in three or four of the books.

Françoise Cachin is the author of a major book on Gauguin; that's not this one. This is a volume in the series (or perhaps simply an imprint) called Discoveries published by Harry N. Abrams. It is similar in tone to the Thomson book, with perhaps a bit more interpretation. It is a small-format book; there are (color) illustrations on most of the first 133 pages, but they are all small. The remainder of the book, titled "Documents", contain excerpts from the writings of Gauguin himself and various aquaintances and critics.

The book by Ingo Walther is in a slightly larger than normal format and has a high ratio of illustrations (all color) to text; there is also much more interpretation of the paintings. It is published by Taschen and probably also belongs to a series.

The next book is published by Grange books, and no author is listed. The text is fairly unimportant. It's mainly a collection of 64 color illustrations, in a somewhat larger format than the other books (though not by any means a "coffee table" book). The selection of paintings is a bit different than the others, and the printed colors are the lightest of the four.

The book titled Gauguin's Intimate Journals is a translation of Avant et Après, one of the journals he wrote in the Marquesas, apparently during the last year or two of his life. I don't know when the French edition was published; the translation is from 1921 and has a preface by his son Emile. It consists of fairly miscellaneous but often quite interesting observations on life and art, and like his paintings is not particularly concerned with factual accuracy.

Something in the Water by Catherine Steadman
A couple on their honeymoon in Bora Bora discovers something that will change their lives. How greedy and dishonest will people be if millions of dollars are involved? Twists I didn't expect.

Waistcoats & Weaponry (Finishing School #3) by Gail Carriger
3 ★

When Sophronia, Dimity, Soap and Lord Felix stowaway on a train to bring Sidheag to Scotland, they end up getting caught up in a plot to bring total chaos to London.

I love Sophronia and her friends. They are strong women who will do what they have to do to help a friend. Sophronia isn’t a snob like most of the other girls at the finishing school and she counts sootie Soap, a lower class individual in most eyes, as a close friend. I really admire her for sticking up for him like she does.
Lord Felix Mercey is one of the snobby ones, but I think Sophronia may be getting through to him about his father and the Picklemen. I think he’s starting to see how dangerous they are.
So far this series has been fun and entertaining. Each starts off where the last one ended (well, close enough) and the action is non-stop. There is some witty comments throughout the book and the ending has a big surprise. It’s kind of sad, but happy at the same time.

W. Somerset Maugham, The Moon and Sixpence [1919] 142 pages [Kindle]

Maugham was one of the most popular and prolific British writers of the first half of the twentieth century, but today only a handful of his novels are still read. This is one of them. It is usually described as based upon the life of Paul Gauguin, but having just read some books on Gauguin before reading this, I would have to say there isn't much resemblance. Maugham's English artist Charles Strickland has three things in common with Gauguin: he was a stockbroker before devoting his life to art; he was a major, influential painter; and he lived the later part of his life on Tahiti. Perhaps some other features are based on the legend, rather than the facts, about Gauguin; on the other hand, the novel may have influenced the legend.

In any case, what Maugham has actually done is create his own myth of the creative and totally egotistical artist, contrasted with the foil of the inept but Christlike altruist Dirk Stroeve, both as seen through a rather philistine narrator. The writing is certainly good and full of quotable passages (if I could get that feature to work on my Kindle), and perhaps if I had not known it was supposed to be Gauguin I would have been more attuned to the actual theme of the book, but in any case I don't really agree with Maugham's romantic conception of the artistic genius (if the narrator reflects the author's viewpoint).

Michael Chabon, Summerland [2002] 500 pages

For my "work-at-home" reader's advisory/blog post, I did something I almost never do -- read a book intended for children (probably aimed at ten and eleven-year-olds). I chose the novel by Michael Chabon because I enjoyed his adult novel Moonglow a few years back; it was a complex book with interesting subject matter. This children's book is of course much simpler with a traditional narrative structure; it is essentially a typical middle grade fantasy in which a group of eleven-year-olds (a Little League baseball team) save the universe from supernatural evil. The villain is called "Coyote" and is the trickster figure of Native American legend, but also identified with the Norse Loki. In fact, the book seemed to me to a combination of Norse mythology and Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials, with a good deal of baseball. Not really what interests me, but the story was fast-paced and consistent and would probably be a good read for someone of the appropriate age.

Mrs wrote: "Something in the Water by Catherine Steadman
A couple on their honeymoon in Bora Bora discovers something that will change their lives. How greedy and dishonest will people be if millions of dollar..."


OOOh ... sounds intriguing!

Booked For Trouble – Eva Gates – 3***
Book two in the Lighthouse Library mystery series focuses on Lucy Richardson’s socialite mother, Suzanne. She may be intent on getting Lucy back in Boston, but Lucy loves her library job and has two potential suitors on Bodie Island. This cozy is full of literary references and peopled by an interesting array of secondary characters, including the cat, Charles (Dickens). An enjoyable read, and I’ll continue the series.
My full review HERE

Arika Okrent, In the Land of Invented Languages: Esperanto Rock Stars, Klingon Poets, Loglan Lovers, and the Mad Dreamers Who Tried to Build a Perfect Language [2009] 342 pages

Okrent is a linguist with an interest in invented languages; this is a popular and very interesting account of the history of artificial languages. She gives a list in an appendix of five hundred known invented languages, but says there are almost as many more. Although the first known invented language dates from the middle ages (Hildegard of Bingen) the first real wave was in the seventeenth century, and was largely inspired by the development of mathematical notation; the idea was that concepts could be defined and combined in a mathematical way to create a logical language that would indicate truth in its very structure. (Although she doesn't mention the fact, they were also partially derived from Kabbala and systems of magical incantations.)

The second wave came toward the end of the nineteenth century, and had as its goal to combat the nationalism based on language groups by creating a new language which would be a "neutral" common language; it was partly inspired by the discovery of the relatedness of languages, and these languages were less completely from scratch, and used the roots common to European languages. The most important, and the one artificial language which has succeeded in creating a significant body of speakers, was Esperanto.

In the twentieth century there were three trends. In the earlier part of the century there were "written" languages, based on a misunderstanding of Chinese characters, which tried to replace words based on sounds with iconic characters which would supposedly be recognizable with little learning by people who had different spoken languages; the example she focuses on was "Blisssymbolics." This had had some practical use in teaching children who cannot speak to read. The second trend was similar to the philosophical languages of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, but concentrating more on structure than on the concepts. They were influenced by modern symbolic logic (which, though she doesn't mention the fact, was a development from some of those languages, especially Leibniz's "Characteristics".) The main examples she uses are Loglan and its offshoot Lojban. The third was more purely aesthetic and entertainment -- Tolkien's Elvish languages, and Klingon. There is a whole internet community today which is dedicated to this sort of playful language construction. She also mentions Suzanne Haden Elgin's attempt to create a feminist language (Láadan).

I enjoyed the book, although there wasn't as much detail as I would have liked on the actual languages and their grammars. I'm also planning to read Umberto Eco's book on the same subject.

If I Should Die (Lucy Kincaid #3) by Allison Brennan
4 ★

Lucy Kincaid and Sean Rogan try to take a vacation together and end up getting caught up in a murder mystery when they detour to help some friends.

I think Lucy and Sean enjoy walking into trouble and maybe one day they will be able to take a real vacation. This story centers on drugs and guns. It’s definitely an easier topic to process than the other books. There is still quite a bit of violence, though.
The story is told from 2 points of view: Lucy and Sean’s and the main criminal character. The reader finds out who the “mystery” person is, but we still get his/her perspective which I really enjoyed. It really lets the reader into the mind of a sociopath with a plan and determination. This character is probably one of the scariest I have read because of how volatile and unpredictable he/she is.
Noah Armstrong is back in this one and, although they still don’t like each other, he and Sean work well together. Lucy also gets to show another FBI department how good she is. I just wish she would start having more confidence in herself and her abilities.
The ending was fast paced and one of the victims finally gets justice. I really liked that part. Finally the FBI or local police don’t get to end everything. Lucy also finally accepts how she feels for Sean and tells him. Warm feels throughout.

Where Dandelions Bloom by Tara Johnson
5 ★

Cassie Kendrick needs to get away from her alcoholic father and the despicable man he has arranged for her to marry. She refuses to be unhappy like her sisters. Cassie runs away and joins the Union army disguised as a man: Thomas Turner. During the Civil War she meets a photographer, Gabriel Avery, who is following her company around documenting the war with pictures. Will her find out who she really is? Will her turn her in? Will the fall in love?

This was a different kind of read for me. Although I have read books about the Civil War, I don’t usually read fiction books with some truth. I absolutely loved it. The story telling is so vivid and real. You can feel the fighting going on around Cassie/Thomas and the pain of loss. There were 2 incidents that crushed me. The story is researched very well and follows the Civil War time line quite well. I did some of my own research as well, out of curiosity. There were over 400 females that disguised themselves as men during the Civil War. You don’t hear much about them and you can be sure that this reader, because of this story, will find more books about them to read.
The love that grows between Cassie and Gabe is very pure and believable. I say pure because Gabe knew her as Thomas for so long that he knew her and how she thought. There was no fake courting or attempts to impress. Even though Cassie continues to push him away you know that it’s upsetting her. She’s just protecting herself and it takes Gabe too long to figure that out. He wants to protect her, but does eventually realize that he can’t.
This is a delightful, well written book that I was upset to have end. Even though the ending is as expected, the future of the two is heartwarming.

Tariq Ali, A Sultan in Palermo [2005] 246 pages

The fourth book in the Islam Quintet, A Sultan in Palermo returns to the period just before the second book, the middle of the twelfth century, in Siqilliya (Sicily). The main character is a historical person, although one about whom not a lot is known: the cartographer and geographer Muhammed al-Idrisi, who made one of the most accurate world maps before the modern period, and accompanied it with a descriptive geography. He is completing the writing of his books at the court of the dying King Roger, also known as the Sultan Rujari, a descendant of the Normans who conquered the island from the Moslems. In the same style as the earlier novels of the Quintet, the loves and domestic affairs of al-Idrisi take place against the background of the conflict between the Moslem population and the Christian barbarian overlords.

Death Of a Winter Shaker – Deborah Woodworth – 3.5***
Book # 1 in the Sister Rose Callahan cozy mystery series, set in a Shaker community in 1930’s Kentucky. I really enjoyed this mystery. Woodworth has given the reader some very interesting and complex characters. Rose is determined, clear-thinking, intelligent and tenacious. And I learned a little about the Shakers.
My full review HERE